Hello, yesterday I read that the PM’s Office expressed its displeasure because Adonis publicly said somewhere that if Samaras enters Parliament, “we will talk to him as well.” First, I think it is inelegant for ministers like Adonis—who, in his own style, has supported the government more than almost anyone else—to have comments attributed to them along the lines of “the Maximos Mansion was displeased.” Second, I do not think Adonis said anything wrong. Even as part of a blame game, why shouldn’t Samaras be the one to say “no” and end up looking like the bad guy, the one whose refusal would be aimed at harming Mitsotakis? Because, as you understand, it will be rather difficult to push K.M. aside if even today’s polling numbers are borne out. In any case, during the election campaign no party will be able to avoid the question, “Whom are you willing to talk to—and whom not—to form a government?” New Democracy and Mitsotakis especially, as the leading party, certainly will not escape it.

Pierrakakis’ message to the loan servicers

Kyriakos Pierrakakis chose a particularly unusual—and entirely unexpected—way to conclude yesterday’s speech at the Hellenic Bank Association. The Finance Minister devoted a significant portion of his closing remarks to people who were not even in the room. “Millions of people and their assets are today in the hands of servicers, effectively outside economic activity,” he said, shifting the discussion from balance sheets to the real economy. What is interesting is that Pierrakakis did not approach the issue as just another social policy intervention, but presented it as a development issue. He spoke of an economy that remains “on hold” as long as people, real estate, and small businesses cannot return to productive activity. However, he did not stop at describing the problem; he also moved on to its solution without mincing his words. As he put it, the state, the banks, and the servicers must create a genuine “pathway back” into economic activity. And I think that is where the speech’s main political message lies: the next phase of economic growth will depend on how many people can get back into the game.

Who will be absent from the Presidential Mansion

Let me begin my reporting on this year’s reception at the Presidential Mansion—which will take place next Friday—not with those attending, but with those who will be absent. Invitations were not sent to party leaders whose parties are not represented in Parliament, namely Karystianou, Varoufakis, and Kasselakis. Latynopoulou did receive an invitation, but in her capacity as a Member of the European Parliament, so she will not sit with the other party leaders in the pavilion. In addition, it has already been confirmed that Velopoulos, who never attends and instead sends Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Vasilis Viliardos as his representative, will be absent, as will NIKI leader Natsios, and Konstantopoulou, who has ongoing beef with Tasoulas.

Concern over SYRIZA

Let me also tell you that no one is following developments within SYRIZA more closely than the staff at the Presidency of the Republic. First of all, they are anxious to invite the new MPs who take over following any resignations—for example, the new MP for Evia, Theodora Akrioti, replacing Symeon Kedikoglou. At the same time, invitations already sent to former MPs are not being withdrawn. They are also wondering who from SYRIZA will sit in the pavilion. Will it be the parliamentary group leader? Will it be the party president? No one knows at this point, although some people—who have an appetite for excitement—would very much like to see Polakis in that distinguished company to “heat things up” a little.

Plus spouses

I contacted my source at the Presidency, who explained the details of the reception, to clarify the rules regarding spouses. I was told that party leaders, former prime ministers, ministers, and MPs all received invitations with a +1. Spouses will also be seated in the pavilion. It is already certain that Kostas Tasoulas’ wife, Fani Stathopoulou, and Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis will attend. As for everyone else, we’ll see.

The unresolved issue of the former prime ministers

Another question is whether the two “former” prime ministers, Tsipras and Samaras—currently at the center of political discussion—will attend the Presidential reception. If they do, large groups are certain to gather around them, although they will not be seated in the pavilion with the other party leaders. If they do not attend, the political gossip will be somewhat flat, with people talking about them, but without them. In any case, the Presidency has not yet received a response from either the Tsipras or Samaras offices, although there is still time.

More contenders emerging in PASOK

PASOK is “boiling,” but for now the maneuvering remains behind the scenes. The opinion polls consistently place it third (and some even fourth), so their only hope is that Tsipras will… lose momentum, although nothing of the sort appears likely at the moment. As a result, ambitions for the day after have been taking shape for quite some time. According to a well-informed source, there are currently at least seven or eight aspiring successors. Everyone who was in the race in 2024 remains (Androulakis, Geroulanos, Doukas, Diamantopoulou, Katrinis), with the exception of Nadia Giannakopoulou, while new names have been added: Manolis Christodoulakis, Pavlos Christidis, and Giannis Maniatis. That is the situation as of today, because as the decisive moment approaches, some are bound to step aside. I also hear that Nikos Papandreou has leadership ambitions. In the previous internal party election he backed Geroulanos in the first round and Doukas in the second. “If we finish third, PASOK will risk collapsing, so a Papandreou needs to step forward,” his associates reportedly say. In any case, from what I gather, until the elections the party’s leading figures will be expected to keep quiet.

Discounts from the refineries

Without much fanfare from the government regarding the legal mechanism, the discounts “at the source” from the refineries announced by Mitsotakis in Parliament have begun. The “gentlemen’s agreement” with Motor Oil and Helleniq Energy provides for a discount of approximately €0.10 per liter of gasoline and €0.05 per liter of diesel, in an effort to somewhat curb prices both in urban centers and in the regions, with the measure remaining in effect until the end of August. Since the refineries have already started applying the discounts, the lower prices should begin appearing at the pump today or tomorrow.

The Piraeus Bank–IASO deal is done

And now to business news, with the latest deal by H. Megalou, who has finalized the acquisition of IASO. According to information, the deal has been completed, and the official announcements are now imminent. The acquisition of IASO paves the way for the plan being developed by the CEO of Piraeus Bank to consolidate Henry Dunant Hospital, Euromedica clinics, IASO (and possibly Biomedicine) into a single corporate entity, while also realizing synergies with Ethniki Insurance. I assume that finalizing the IASO agreement was the reason for H. Megalou’s absence from the Hellenic Bank Association’s general assembly.

Rolex watches and veterinary services

“Rolex watches and veterinary services have somehow ended up in the same category. Both are subject to 24% VAT, and it is wrong for veterinary care to be treated as a luxury item,” said Nikos Karamouzis, chairman of SMERemediumCap, during yesterday’s presentation of the Placentia veterinary clinic group. VAT on veterinary services was originally 6%, then gradually increased because of fiscal pressures, and was eventually raised to 24% by the Troika. Karamouzis called on the government to reduce VAT on veterinary services, not only because it is the highest in Europe, but also because it encourages the shadow economy while discouraging access to healthcare services. It is estimated that there are around 3 million companion animals in Greece, and following the 2022 EU directive, member states now have the option of applying reduced VAT rates to veterinary services as well. He concluded by saying: “VAT on human healthcare is zero. The time has come to correct this injustice for the thousands of companion animal owners as well.” Speaking on the sidelines of the presentation, the chairman of SMERemediumCap also commented on the progress of the fund’s other investments, saying they had successfully turned EPSA around and that the company is expected to report operating profitability this year. EPSA is expected to further improve its performance following its strategic agreement with MANTIS Group, a strong distributor in the so-called small retail sector—that is, kiosks, convenience stores, and similar outlets. EPSA has also renewed for another three years its agreement with PepsiCo to produce HBI soft drinks at its Agria plant near Volos. As for Cordia, which provides facility management services, it is expected to generate revenue of around €180 million this year and has become one of the country’s largest employers, with 5,500 employees. Regarding the portfolio of hotel loans across Greece that SMERemediumCap acquired jointly with other investors, Karamouzis said it had proved to be the fund’s most profitable investment.

Bankers at ElvalHalcor

The domestic banking sector showed strong interest in ElvalHalcor, as evidenced by the attendance of banking executives at the company’s investor event the day before yesterday. Among those present in Marousi were P. Mylonas and V. Karamouzis from National Bank, V. Psaltis from Alpha Bank, F. Karavias and K. Vasileiou from Eurobank, E. Vrettou from Credia, D. Kyparissis from Optima, T. Vlachopoulos from Piraeus Bank, and, alongside the major shareholders, Haris Iliadis of Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, ElvalHalcor’s order book for its €250 million share capital increase opened yesterday in Athens and London and has already been oversubscribed.Most bids fall between €4.50 and €4.60 per share, representing a discount of 5.5% to 7% from the maximum price of €4.86. The process concludes tomorrow at 4:00 p.m., with Goldman Sachs and UBS leading the international placement and trading in the new shares scheduled to begin on July 22. There is, however, one interesting detail. Although the July 9 General Meeting abolished shareholders’ preemptive rights, the structure of the offering includes a special priority allocation mechanism. According to information, existing Elval shareholders who subscribe to the capital increase are entitled, on average, to shares equivalent to approximately 18% of their existing holdings. This mechanism ensures that their overall ownership stakes will not be diluted. It is an important detail for a company whose free float is only 15%, with Viohalco holding 84.8%. Everything indicates that the free float will increase to nearly 30%.

Pressure on Viohalco shares

ElvalHalcor’s capital increase may be responsible for the chain reaction of selling pressure seen yesterday across Viohalco group shares. Cenergy recorded the day’s sharpest losses (-2.85%), closing at €21.14, moving even further away from both the price of its recent placement (€24.20) and its all-time high (€26.20). Cenergy shares have become a major topic of discussion on the Athens Stock Exchange because the recent placement was supposedly allocated to high-quality institutional investors—a claim that the stock’s subsequent performance has not confirmed. Parent company Viohalco followed a similar path, falling 2.2%, while ElvalHalcor declined 2.26% to €4.75. Despite the pressure on the market, however, the indications from the capital increase, as mentioned above, remain positive.

PPC and the cream of institutional investors

On an otherwise declining trading day, PPC’s share price moved against the trend, with its market capitalization continually flirting with the €14 billion mark. Yesterday’s catalyst was Capital Group, based in Los Angeles. Capital Group is the world’s largest active asset manager, founded in 1931, with more than $3.3 trillion in assets under management. The trigger was its disclosure that it had exceeded the 5% ownership threshold in PPC. Capital Group had already stood out in last May’s record-breaking capital increase (where €18 billion in orders were submitted to raise €4.25 billion at €18.63 per share), alongside BlackRock, Vanguard, Norges, Wellington, Pictet, and QIA. The difference is that it has now moved from appearing in the order book to making an official regulatory disclosure. The stake is held through discretionary client accounts managed by companies within the Capital Group, while the firm’s multi-manager “Capital System” distributes investment decisions across multiple portfolio managers. At the end of June, Capital Group also disclosed a 5.26% stake in ADMIE. It is clear that the American investment giant is systematically building positions in Greece’s energy infrastructure. It is yet another vote of confidence in the country’s investment story, even before MSCI officially upgrades Greece to developed market status in May 2027. The ownership structure of the “new” PPC has changed significantly. The Greek state, through GrowthFund, holds 33.4%; CVC owns 17.2%; and Capital Group now owns more than 5%. All this is taking place against the backdrop of PPC’s €24.2 billion investment plan through 2030, covering renewable energy, electricity grids, Southeast Europe, and a 300 MW data center in Kozani. Analysts remain optimistic. Morgan Stanley sees the stock reaching €27, while Goldman Sachs has a target of €26.50. In June 2019, PPC was worth €390 million. Seven years later, Los Angeles is buying into a €14 billion turnaround story.

At…irregular intervals

There was a time when the Hellenic Gaming Commission published monthly market statistics, giving interested parties a reasonably timely picture of developments in the sector. Today, not only are these statistical reports published at irregular intervals, but they also cover months that have long since passed, significantly reducing their value. Instead of serving as a timely information tool, the publication has effectively become an archive of historical data rather than a meaningful source of information on current developments.

The derivative…going nowhere

Some time ago, the Athens Stock Exchange introduced a derivatives product based on MSCI stocks. It appears that the market has shown little enthusiasm for the product, since not only have there been no trades for many consecutive sessions, but even the designated market makers have not maintained tight bid-ask spreads. If even now, when the market is enjoying its strongest liquidity conditions since 2008, the product cannot attract even minimal trading activity, one has to wonder what purpose it still serves.

The two stocks supporting the Athens Stock Exchange

The Athens Stock Exchange is finding strong support in OTE and HELLENiQ ENERGY. Both stocks continue to display excellent defensive characteristics and strong buying momentum, reaching new multi-year highs and providing substantial support to the General Index, which remains above 2,500 points. OTE is closing in on the psychologically important €20 mark, having finished yesterday at a session high of €19.88, up almost 2%. These are the telecommunications group’s highest levels in 18 years, specifically since May 2008, with its market capitalization now exceeding the €8 billion milestone. HELLENiQ ENERGY rallied 2.1%, breaking above €12 for the first time in 19 years (since December 2007) and closing at €12.12. The stock also completed a four-day winning streak with cumulative gains of 12.7%, while its performance for the year is approaching an impressive +45%. A move above €12.20 would open the way toward price levels last seen in May 2006.

RAAEY and electricity tariff comparisons

RAAEY’s 2025 report is, without exaggeration, the most comprehensive public analysis of Greece’s retail electricity market ever published. Among many other valuable findings, its detailed analysis of tariff developments (“fixed,” “variable,” and “special” tariffs) provides consumers with a much-needed transparency tool. Precisely because RAAEY’s work is so thorough, it also deserves one constructive observation. In its comparison tables, tariffs are presented on an equal footing, side by side, regardless of their actual market penetration. As a result, certain commercial offerings that serve, at best, only a few hundred customers appear to carry the same weight as products used by hundreds of thousands of households. Readers may therefore come away with an impression of the “cheapest market” that bears very little resemblance to what the average consumer actually pays. The solution is straightforward and already within the regulator’s reach, since it has access to suppliers’ data. Each table simply needs one additional column showing the number—or at least the approximate order of magnitude—of customer accounts associated with each tariff. Such weighting would transform the comparison from a snapshot of price lists into a genuine map of the market, while also protecting the report from selective interpretation. In regulatory transparency, just as with electricity tariffs, the real substance is always hidden in the fine print.

The bill on occupational insurance

Since Monday evening and until July 27, the Labour Ministry’s bill on occupational insurance has been open for public consultation. This is the much-discussed “second pillar,” the supplementary pension that employees and companies build in addition to EFKA (the Greek state social security system). According to information, the goal is to introduce the bill to Parliament at the end of the month, so that the framework becomes law by the end of August at the latest. The background behind this text hides hours of consultations and discussions behind closed doors. The Labour Ministry took personal responsibility for the project, in coordination with the Bank of Greece and the Ministry of Finance, and was called upon to strike a balance between two worlds. On one side is ELETEA, which represents Occupational Insurance Funds and saw its long-standing demands being met; on the other are the major insurance groups represented by the Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies (EAEE). The latter publicly and practically support the second pillar (no one dares to appear opposed to retirement savings), but—naturally—fought hard to ensure that the new framework would not “cannibalize” their own individual products in the third pillar. The solution offered by Kerameus is OAPES, a group retirement product that insurance companies will provide under the same supervisory rules and with the same tax incentives as Occupational Insurance Funds (TEAs). Insurance companies are officially entering the second pillar on equal terms “so that distortions are not created.”

What does JPMorgan know that the shipping market does not?

The news is not that JPMorgan is investing in shipping. It has been doing that for years. The real news is the pace at which it is currently building its tanker fleet, at a time when many in the market warn that the orderbook has already reached historic highs. In shipbroking offices and shipping circles, the discussion has intensified. Some see behind the moves of the American investment machine a carefully calculated bet that geopolitical tensions, longer sea routes, and the aging of the global fleet will keep tankers in high demand for many years to come. Others, however, interpret the same signal differently. They argue that when even the largest investment funds accelerate their ordering activity, the market may be approaching the point where optimism turns into excess. What is interesting is that JPMorgan does not operate as a traditional bank, but rather as an asset manager that buys ships, operates them, and sells them when it believes the right moment has arrived. That is why many are wondering whether this is the market’s “smartest money” seeing what lies ahead, or simply another powerful player raising the temperature of an already overheated cycle.

Lou Kollakis’ deal that everyone in shipping is discussing

In shipping markets, they say that the right timing is worth as much as the right vessel. And the recent move by Greek-owned Chartworld shows that some players know when they should buy—and, above all, when they should sell. According to shipbroking circles, the company acquired two 4,253 TEU Panamax containerships from Japanese shipowners only last March and, just a few months later, resold them at a substantial profit to MSC. Market estimates point to significant gains achieved in a very short period, confirming that the containership market remains particularly “hot.” Shipping circles did not overlook the fact that this move came at a time when second-hand vessel values continue to rise and major liner operators are seeking immediately available capacity, even at higher prices. Meanwhile, those familiar with the market point out that Chartworld shows no intention of slowing down its activity. On the contrary, it continues its investment program with new containership orders, demonstrating that for some Greek shipowners opportunities are found not only in chartering but also in quick, carefully calculated ship transactions.

The shipowner investing in history

In shipping, donations are nothing unusual. However, when an initiative is connected to national memory, its impact acquires a different significance. The signing of the donation agreement for the creation of the National Museum of 1821, with the support of the Antonis E. Komninos Foundation, is an important and commendable action with strong symbolism, leaving a mark on the country’s culture and historical heritage. Antonis Komninos’ initiative was positively received, as it confirms that Greek shipping continues to invest not only in ships and businesses but also in initiatives with national and cultural significance. And as older figures in the industry often say, some investments cannot be measured in money, but in what they leave behind for future generations.

Drought emptied the Rhine—and the supply chain with it

Here in Greece, we feel the effects of water shortages during the summer—especially on the islands because of the surge in tourism. In Germany, however, they have a different unit of measurement: Kaub. It is the most critical navigation point on the great Rhine River. Yesterday morning, Kaub showed that the water level had fallen to 53 centimeters. That was 8 centimeters below the level at which barges can accept cargo, even with the special low-water surcharge. It was the lowest seasonal level in decades, according to a chart published by Bloomberg. Ships that normally carry up to 2,500 tons are passing through Kaub with only 460 tons, meaning less than 20% of their normal capacity. The freight rate for diesel from Rotterdam to Karlsruhe jumped from €45 per ton (at the end of June) to €60–70 yesterday, meaning an increase of up to 56% in two weeks. Every barge that is immobilized is equivalent to 100–150 trucks that must take to the roads, on a road network already congested around Antwerp. The Rhine carries grain, coal, chemicals, minerals, and critical petroleum products, at a time when the crisis in Hormuz has already pushed Brent crude up to $86.5. German industry, which in 2022 paid the price for a similar drought through production stoppages, is watching the worst-case scenario repeat itself. The Alpine snow melted early, Alpine lakes are at historic lows, and the Rhine River has placed its hopes entirely on rainfall. A new heatwave is sweeping across the river basin, with France reducing its nuclear output and the British grid warning of power shortages. German meteorologists are hoping for rain on Friday. Europe’s largest economy is watching its supply chains being cut—not because of bombings, but because of a lack of water.